On Vegan Ethics
'Ethical Problems' 'The Problem of Empty Contents' 'Introduction' There is a strain of thought about veganism in vegan circles that it is a position of ethical correctness, and that this correctness is derived from ethical consistency. My aim is to show that vegan ethicists are either disingenuous or ignorant of the requirement of a consistent vegan ethics. To this end, I will present problems raised by the ethical position, and present problems raised by some anticipated responses. 'Larry's Problem' There is a problem raised when the justification for "going vegan" lies in the reduction of animal suffering. If we suppose that we have a vegan named Larry, and further suppose that Larry is a weight lifter; then it is true that Larry would reduce the suffering of animals if he ceased lifting weights (i.e. reduce crop deaths.) This follows from the fact that Larry requires greater quantities of food for weight lifting rather than not. As a vegan, Larry might reflect on this fact, and he would face the following problem. If the reason against the consumption of animal products is that these products cause suffering that could be avoided (i.e. unnecessary suffering,) then the same reasoning would apply to weight lifting. That is, the reason against is that these acts cause suffering that could be avoided. If Larry maintains the view that the reduction of suffering is the justification for refraining from eating meat, then he has no way to counter the idea that lifting weights is unethical because it causes unnecessary animal suffering. Larry may modify his view to counter this thought. He might appeal to the fact that lifting weights improves his well-being (whatever that is supposed to mean.) By doing so, however, he opens himself to a deeper criticism, namely that he cannot justify why veganism is ethical where non-vegan ethics are not. More specifically, Larry prompts the following question, if moral justification for an act is in the relation between well-being and suffering, then why should any one be a vegan at all? Why is it true that the well-being derived from eating an animal is not greater than the suffering of that animal? Simply asserting that well-being does not outweigh suffering in the case of eating animals will not work. The non-vegans could simply assert that the well-being does outweigh the suffering, and the conversation would go nowhere. Here are ways out of this impasse: #demonstrate that the suffering of the animal is objectively greater than the well-being derived from that animal's death; #introduce an additional condition for justification; #reject the well-being condition; #reject the unnecessary suffering condition; #abandon vegan ethics. The remainder of this article will address both 1 and 2 since the others are either unacceptable (to a vegan) or lead to a repugnant conclusion (to most sane people.) 'Bad Options' There are two problems with demonstrating that the suffering of the animal is objectively greater than the well-being derived from that animal's death. First, one would need to develop an objective measurement of both well-being and suffering, and show that in the case of eating animals the suffering is greater than the well-being. Second, one would need to show that this relationship between well-being and suffering holds for all (relevant) cases of eating animals. Moreover, this position would take on the problems of utilitarianism generally, and nota bene that the onus of proof is on the vegan ethicist. The problem with introducing an additional condition naturally depends on the condition chosen. However, I believe that a common choice would be that: : It is wrong to use a sentient being as a means to an end (i.e. exploitation.) Ignoring the typical problems with deontological ethics of this sort, this position would be unable to say what is wrong with the following statement: : It is not wrong to destroy all plant life on Earth. A response might be that such an act would ultimately result in the destruction of all sentient life on Earth, but on this view of vegan ethics this objection has no justification. Because all plants are not sentient beings, we are allowed to use plants as a means to an end, and this end is the destruction of all life on Earth. One might appeal to the fact that this destruction causes unnecessary suffering, but this appeal defeats the purpose of adding the additional condition in the first place, and we (again) face the problem at the beginning of this article. 'Conclusion' It is (hopefully) clear by now that the best option the vegan ethicist has is to introduce a new condition to justify the claim that consuming animal products is (normally) unethical. Moreover, it is evident that the current vegan account cannot explain why both living an active life (or living at all for that matter) is morally permissible and consuming animal products is not morally permissible. Unless the vegan ethicist can explain these claims without appealing to arbitrary rules, there is no reason why being a vegan for the sake of the animals is ethical. Dorgenbjorn (talk) 09:59, September 19, 2019 (UTC) 'On Name the Trait' 'Introduction' On philosophical vegan wiki with regard to an out of date version of Name The Trait it is written that These drawbacks can make the argument confusing and unconvincing. However the argument can be corrected by modifying its first premise to require human moral value to be based on a trait and by adding a premise that rejects double standards (or by framing things more directly around the challenge to name a good justification for according important moral status to all sentient humans but virtually no moral status to non-human animals), preserving the original intention of the argument. My aim here is to show that even with these added premises, there is a serious deficiency with this version of the Name The Trait argument. 'A critique' The argument I will be treating here is out of date. Nevertheless, it would be informative to critique the argument to see exactly where it fails to provide a satisfactory explanation. It is mentioned in a Name The Trait article that the following version of Name The Trait (NTT) suffers from an assumption about traits, namely that moral value is derived from traits. The argument is written thus Argument for animal moral value: P1 - Humans are of moral value P2 - There is no trait absent in animals which if absent in humans would cause us to deem ourselves valueless. C - Therefore without establishing the absence of such a trait in animals, we contradict ourselves by deeming animals valueless Sic The NTT argument assumes that moral devaluation requires justification. This entails the following # there is moral value to begin with. It is, hopefully, obvious that 1. follows from the assumption that moral value can be taken away (the act of devaluation.) This raises the question of whether the moral value is derived from mental/physical features (traits) of the object or from something else. Ask Yourself (AY) assumes that this moral value is derived from traits. Let us grant this for the sake of argument. So, we have the following premises: # There is moral value. # Moral value is derived from traits. # Humans are of moral value. AY posits the following: 4. There is no trait both present in humans and absent in animals such that if the trait were absent in a human, then the human would have no moral value. Let us write 4. using logical quantifiers (this will take multiple steps.) # Let T be the set of traits; H be the set of humans; A be the set of animals; T_H be the set of human traits; T_A be the set of animal traits; M be the set of things with moral value; # T_A, T_H \subseteq T ; # H \subset A ; # Let \phi : A \mapsto T be a function that maps an animal a \in A to the set of traits belonging to that animal T_a ( T_a \subseteq T ), i.e. \phi(a) = \{t_0, t_1, t_2,\ldots, t_{n-1}\} = T_a ; # t \in T , h \in H , where t is a trait and h is some human. # \neg(\exists t\forall h (((t \in T_H) \wedge(t \notin (T_A-T_H)) \wedge ((t \notin \phi(h))\implies h \notin M)))) is the formal translation of AY's statement # \neg(\exists t\forall h ((t \in T_H) \wedge(t \notin (T_A-T_H)) \wedge (\neg(t \notin \phi(h))\vee h \notin M))) is logically equivalent to 6 since (P\implies Q) \iff (\neg P \vee Q) # \forall t\exists h ((t \notin T_H) \vee(t \in (T_A-T_H)) \vee ((t \notin \phi(h))\wedge h \in M)) is logically equivalent to 7 by negation. Yikes, let us rewrite 8. in English: For all traits t there exists a human h such that, either t is not a human trait, t is a non-human animal trait, or both t is not a trait of h and h has moral value. Interesting... for this equivalent statement to be true, it must be the case that at least one of the disjuncts are true: For all traits t there exists a human h such that, # t is not a human trait; # t is a non-human animal trait; # both t is not a trait of h and h has moral value. Let us suppose h has moral value. Then we have the following cases: For all traits t , either # t is not a trait of h ; # t is a non-human animal trait; # or t is not a human trait. Further suppose that 1. holds, then both h has moral value and h has no trait t . If moral value is derived from traits, h has moral value, and t is not a trait of h , then t does not matter for determining moral value. Considering this, let us suppose that 1. does not hold. Then, it must be the case that either 2. or 3. hold. If we suppose that t is a non-human animal trait and t is not a human trait, then t is both the trait of a human h and t is not a human trait. Thus we have a contradiction, so it is not the case that t is a non-human animal trait and t is not a human trait. Thus t must be both a human trait and non-human animal trait. A consequence of this is that there are no traits that humans have but animals do not. We can also suppose that t is not a non-human animal trait and t is not a human trait, but that would contradict our assumption that t is a trait of h . So, let us suppose that t is a non-human animal trait and t is a human trait. On this interpretation, the trait t is both a trait of non-human animals, humans, h , and h has moral value. This is all well and good, but is it true that the trait t gives h moral value or is it just the case that anything with moral value has some trait t ? Recall the disjunct (indeed, disjunct since this is a conjunction that is part of a disjunction above) both t is not a trait of h and h has moral value. If we suppose that h has moral value, then the statement above is true if we pick some trait no animal has (note that above I take it to be the case that all humans are animals H \subset A ) we could, for example, take the trait t to be the trait of being made of stone, and h to be myself. I am both not made of stone and I am of moral value, therefore the disjunct both t is not a trait of h and h has moral value. is true. Therefore, the statement: Either t is not a human trait, t is a non-human animal trait, or both t is not a trait of h and h has moral value. is true. Thus this statement tells us nothing about why I am morally valuable and offers no explanation for why the trait t matters at all. AY assumes that traits are what matter, but the statement There is no trait both present in humans and absent in animals such that if the trait were absent in a human, then the human would have no moral value. ultimately amounts to saying that things we care about have traits, and tells us nothing about what traits these are exactly. 'Conclusion' It has been a contentious debate among philosophers for a very long time whether the reasons we have to do things (e.g. eat a hamburger rather than not) are either given by facts about the world (the "good" making properties of the act), mental states, or something else. The argument above more closely follows the tradition that supposes facts about the world give agents reasons for action, and it suffers from the same defect that it is unable to provide facts that give agents reason for action. I take it to be the bitter truth that these reasons for action are given by mental states, and that traits matter insofar anything we could ever care about has at least one trait, but it does not follow that this trait is the reason why we care about that thing since the reason why we care about anything is not in that thing at all.